Sony Unveils Innovative RX100 III

2014.05.16

Today Sony announced their latest large-sensor compact, the unique Cybershot RX100 III. Already, the original RX100 is well-regarded for its outstanding image-quality and then Sony followed it with an RX100 II which added an optional add-on EVF. Now, the RX100 III sports a unique popup EVF which fits right in the body and lets the camera remain compact.

The new Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100 III boasts an improved ultra-wide and ultra-bright lens. It is equivalent to a 24-70mm in 35mm-terms and sports a maximum F/1.8 aperture at wide-angle and F/2.8 at telephoto end. This makes it even easier for this camera to deliver high image-quality when light is low. While earlier RX100 models started bright, their lenses were a quite dim F/4.9 at the long end.

The new 0.39" EVF offers 1.4 megapixels and 0.59X magnification. Its popup and pull-out design bring a rare EVF into the compact digital camera world. There is also an impressive 1.2 megapixels 3" LCD which tilts for framing at odd angles. There are free-rotating dials around the lens and 4-way controller. As expected for such a premium camera, it offers full manual-controls, including custom white-balance and spot metering.

Sony fitted with RX100 III with a Bionz X processor to deliver speedy performance. This compact camera can shoot 20 megapixels images at 10 FPS for up to 12 JPEG or 13 RAW (Yes, oddly, it does more RAW than JPEG per burst). It can record full 1080p HD video at up to 60 FPS using the modern XAVC S codec. Another uncommon feature is clean 1080p HD output, something which has never been done on a compact camera before. Built-in WiFi and NFC round the mix of features.

The Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100 III is scheduled to be available next month for $799 USD. No world on availability outside of the US yet.

• Digital Camera